Canada’s Competition Bureau to probe forestry industry ads on sustainable management
Global News
The inquiry, announced late last year, comes in response to a complaint filed by the environmental law firm Ecojustice on behalf of eight environmental groups.
The Competition Bureau has opened an inquiry to see if forestry industry claims of sustainable management on vast stretches of Canadian woodlands are false advertising.
The inquiry, announced late last year, comes in response to a complaint filed by the environmental law firm Ecojustice on behalf of eight environmental groups. Ecojustice says that forest industry ads claiming the Sustainable Forestry Initiative sets rigorous harvesting standards are dishonest and misleading.
“The (standard) does not prescribe, require, assure, command, mandate, or in any form certify sustainable forest management,” says the complaint filed to the bureau. “It allows aspirations, stated intentions, and programs to be conflated with actual outcomes.”
Jason Metnick, spokesman for the initiative, denied those allegations Wednesday.
“(The initiative) has a forest management standard that is based on objective performance measures and indicators,” he said.
At stake is Canada’s most commonly used method of assuring consumers that the wood and paper products they buy are harvested in accordance with modern ecological principles. It is promoted by the Forest Products Association of Canada and purports to certify sustainable forestry on more than 120 million hectares.
But the Ecojustice complaint calls on the Competition Bureau to force the industry to retract those claims and pay a $10 million fine.
It says the initiative uses vague language that is too woolly to create any sort of measurable standard. Terms like “rare,” “ecologically important,” “significant” and “at risk” are not defined.